Building Character

 I don't think I'm alone when I say that my path as an illustrator has been heavily influenced not only by illustrators of the past and present but also animated movies and television shows. I grew up in the golden age of Saturday morning cartoons–The Bugs Bunny/Roadrunner Show; Scooby Doo; The Jetsons; The Superfriends; Robotech. And every Saturday morning kicked off several hours of tense stand-off with my mom as she maniacally enforced a weekly cleaning schedule that saw me shouldering the heavy burden of cleaning the bathrooms and dusting everything. I wasn't very subtle in my attempts to sneak in cartoon watching as I worked. And by working I mean sitting on the couch, remote in-hand. Parents never understood the need for cartoons.

Anyway, one of the legacies of this horribly stress-filled childhood has been a desire to eventually include character design for animation as part of my path as an illustrator. One of the steps I've recently taken toward that goal has been to enroll in Stephen Silver's Character Design course hosted on Bobby Chiu's Schoolism site. I'm currently in the midst of Week 6 of the course and I'm being challenged and learning TONS!

One of the biggest things I've learned is the importance of pushing past your first several designs until you break out of the self-imposed limitations of initial ideas. Given the limited schedule of most illustration projects, I generally tend to rely on my first few ideas so I can get on with meeting the deadlines. I've always known the importance of pushing ideas but I've also fallen victim to the need for speed and the tyranny the modern production schedule. Stephen's class has changed that.

I'm in week 6 of classes and one of the assignments is working out designs for a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde project. We were to come up with a twist on the standard dual-personality idea and come up with the look of our characters. My idea is set in the 1920's and Dr. Jekyll is an Oxford professor and Hyde is a self-styled adventurer type with delusions of grandeur.

Normally, my first inclination is to stop after doing only about four or five variations and then moving on. But pushing past my first ideas reulted in ideas that started moving away from my general solution patterns.

This has brought home the importance of idea exploration and the possibilities found in taking a little more time, allowing ideas to ferment and develop in ways that may suprise.

I can't recommend Stephen's class enough to anyone wanting to push their ideas further. He's an amazingly talented guy and he's developed a short course that will push you're creativity.

Comments

[Christian Elden]

Sounds like a cool class! Nice sketches, too.

[Phil Willis]

Nice work. Congrats on the character design.

That's (yet another!) thumbs up for Stephen Silver's character design course.

I might end up taking the class some time soon.

All the best.
--Phil

[Gerald Kelley]

I can't recommend Stephen's course enough. Definitely a great experience.